Bigwigs call for end to US-centric internet governance

Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and Brazilian president Dilma
Rousseff were among the digital big guns to call for a shake up of net
governance at NETmundial in Brazil this week.

Set against a backdrop of mass surveillance and discomfort with
ICANN's cosy relationship with the US government, companies,
diplomats, academics, campaign groups and other stakeholders have
come together to re-evaluate how the internet should be governed.
The mot du jour at the " World Cup of internet governance" was "multistakeholderism": an
ugly, awkward word designed to connote a more pluralistic
approach to maintaining the net's infrastructure and enshrining its
democratic values. Had you played a buzzword drinking game with
that term, you'd have been on the floor within the first hour.

"The internet we want is only possible in a scenario where human
rights are respected, particularly the right to privacy and to
one's freedom of expression," said Rousseff in the opening session
of the event. She was joined on stage by Vint Cerf; Tim
Berners-Lee; Nnenna Nwakanma, co-founder of the Free Software and
Open Source Foundation for Africa; Wu Hongbo the UN
Under-Secretary-General; Paulo Bernardo Silva, Brazil's Minster of
Communication; and Fadi Chehadé, the president of ICANN.

The meeting coincided with Brazil's senate unanimously adopting
a bill enshrining the right to online privacy and equal access to
the internet, dubbed the "Internet Constitution".

Rousseff described the mass spying carried out by the US and
other governments as "unacceptable". The techniques used "are an
affront against the very nature of the internet as a democratic,
free and pluralistic platform," she said.

Nwakanma echoed the sentiment, saying "the trust [in the
internet] has been destroyed by the collection, processing and
interception of our communication". "Surveillance undermines
internet security," she added, calling for a more robust
infrastructure, global participation, net neutrality, freedom and
transparency.

"I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to
privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the
absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of
expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In
the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for
the relationship among nations."

This quote was also referenced, but not repeated, by Tim
Berners-Lee, who re-emphasised the need to loosen the ties between
ICANN and the US government. He said he was "very glad" that the US
government has accepted to release the oversight, calling it "very overdue
and a very important step". "ICANN services the global public
internet and therefore should be a global public body," Berners-Lee
said, suggesting that some of the funds ICANN raises -- through
sale of domain names -- should be spent in a "beneficent way",
which could include improve infrastructure, accessibility,
standardisation and internationalisation.

"Decisions it makes about TLDs and about how to spend funding
should be made by stepping back and thinking 'never mind about the
people we know intimately but what is best for humanity as a
whole?'," the web inventor said.

Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet who now works at
Google, described this dialogue as "timely". However, he was less
critical of ICANN's ties to the US government and other large US
companies, perhaps because of his current employer.

He said that it was important to "devise a response to the US
invitation" to assure that ICANN will "adhere to the principles
that have made the internet a remarkable, global and beneficial
infrastructure".

His speech came to an untimely end due to a printing error. He
turned over a page before stumbling: "Well, I have a very
interesting problem here, my speech ends because the rest of it
wasn't printed out."